


Synthetic VI: CROW

by Kitty Fisher (kittyfisher)



Series: Synthetic [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Brothers, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 03:49:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8386084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittyfisher/pseuds/Kitty%20Fisher
Summary: Immediately following on from Cell. Love, pain, the past and possibilities for the future...





	

Synthetic: CROW  
Kitty Fisher

 

“Sam, pull over…”

“What - again?”

“Yeah…” He can hear exhaustion and, yep, aggravation in Sam’s voice, but right now, he’s way too miserable to care.

“Fuck.” But the big hands are already turning the wheel and pulling them off the blacktop. Even before the back wheels finish skidding, Dean’s out the door, sucking in air while the grass and sky trip and reel around him. He almost falls, catches himself, one hand on gravel-thick grass as he scrambles to get away, wanting just to not hurl on his boots. But, man, he’s so fucked and on the edge of a field of seedling corn he goes down, on all fours, with the sour acidity of bile burning up through his gut and throat, his back clammy with cold sweat.

His body’s trying to expel something that’s not there. Maybe he should eat something? But, fuck it, the thought alone makes his stomach spasm. Perhaps he should just invest in some airsickness bags for the trip. Hell, maybe he could just wind the window down – but knowing his luck he’d end up decapitated by some passing truck. Probably a haunted one.

Dammit, he’s laughing, and yet not quite laughing, as he sits back on his heels, staring up into the beauty of post-dawn morning with accusation. He twists sideways, fast, a breath sucked in hard as a figure shifts suddenly into his field of vision.

“Hey! It’s me.”

“Oh, yeah…” Thankful there’s nothing worse than grass stains on his jeans, Dean sits still, looking up at his brother silhouetted against the brightening sky. In shadow, with the long strands of his hair teased into a tangle around his face by the light breeze, he looks aloof, distant.

He even sounds diffident. “You okay?”

Dean nods. But, man, he’s grateful when a hand is offered. Dean takes it, lets himself be hauled upright. For a second or two he just stands still and lets the world stop spinning. “Thanks.” The hand holding his own is warm. Or maybe his own is just cold. With a blink to bring his eyesight into focus, he looks down; two hands, touching. Clasping. Sam doesn’t let go, and he’s stroking his thumb back and forth over one of Dean’s knuckles. The only one that isn’t raw. Both wrists, his and Sam’s, are already darkening, with bruises around abraded skin. Jesus, but metal cuffs were a bastard.

And they’d laid into Sammy real hard. Dean frowns, thinking how painful driving must have been… He looks up, dragging his gaze from their still linked hands to Sam’s serious face. There’s a bruise on Sam’s cheekbone, but most of the damage must be hidden away under the layers of clothing, from when his torso was nothing but a punching bag.

“Sorry – I shouldn’t have just assumed you’d drive.”

“What the hell…?” Sam looks bewildered and the thumb stops its stroking. “Dean, you were pretty much out of it.”

“So? What about you? They weren’t exactly giving you a massage!”

“No, but at least they didn’t rape me!” The words are blurted out, like soda shaken from a can.

Dean frowns. Turns his head tightly to one side, the small movement one of disbelief. “No way. It’s rape when you’re screaming at them to stop, Sam. You hear me screaming?”

“Once.”

Which makes Dean pause, stomach twisting, but he grins, needing bravado like a lifeline. “Yeah, but you screamed first.”

Sam drops his hand, gestures wildly. “They grabbed my balls. Instant pain. Sorry I wasn’t man enough to bite my lip!”

“I didn’t mean it like that. Sam?”

But Sam turns, hands shoved in his pockets. “Yeah, right. Winchester men are tough motherfuckers. I remember the lessons.”

“Dad only taught us –”

“Shut up.” Stopping suddenly, Sam turns back, anger in every line of his body. “Shut up about Dad, okay?”

“But…”

“No. Dammit, Dean, why can’t you just see?”

“What?”

Three paces and Sam’s there, standing in front of him, and Dean almost flinches as the big hands come up, but they don’t hit, they just cup his face so Sam can stare down, his face pinched, his eyes stormy. “Dean, did you want those guys to fuck you because it was a really hot idea and you were going to get off on it?”

“What d’you think I am!”

“Dean. Answer me. Did you _want_ it.”

“No way!”

“Right.” Sam lets out a long, unsteady breath. “That’s step one. Step two – Dean, admit you were raped.”

“But…”

The hands shake him gently, though Sam appears to be almost crying. “No. No buts. Say it. Admit it. It wasn’t something that _happens_ , something that _people do_. Dean, they fucked you and it was rape.”

“But, I did ask for it, kind of.”

“To save me!”

“Sure.” Dean shrugs, because he can’t quite get his head around this, because Sam’s kissing him, lip to lip, and the kiss is so damn weird what with the way Sam’s almost sobbing, but Dean can’t not respond, so he opens up, and tilts his hips, tasting Sam and warmth and salt. Tears. Man…

But Sam pushes away, hands holding Dean’s shoulders, and he’s in control, his eyes bright but clear and calm. “Dean, thank you for what you did. You’ve got to understand that I can’t tell you in enough words how what you did meant, but dammit, you can’t just brush it away like it was no worse than a beating!”

“It wasn’t.”

“Dean, you can hardly move!”

“Okay – a bad beating.”

“Jesus…” Sam’s mouth opens to say something else. Closes. His eyes screw closed and the skin around his lips is starkly white. “Dean, brother, I really don’t want to ask this – fuck, or think it but, hell… How many times have you done something like that?”

“Like what, get fucked?”

“No. Like take something – a beating, a rape, whatever – just because it was the easiest way out, or the _only_ way out?”

He shrugs. It’s not like he’s ever wanted to remember, afterwards. “A few. Maybe.”

Sam’s fingers are starting to dig into Dean’s flesh, but he doesn’t shift, keeping quite still while Sam’s emotions storm around them. “Did Dad make you do this?”

Minefield. Dean straightens, very slightly. And even that small movement’s too much of a giveaway. Sam shakes his head slowly, in utter misery. 

“Sam…” Dean swallows bitterly. “He needed me!” _So did you_.

“Is that what he told you?”

“It’s the truth.”

“Crap. Don’t. Don’t excuse him.” Sam turns then, walks away, into the field and about twenty paces out just stands there and screams, arms outstretched as he howls at the rising sun, only breaking off when a flock of birds rise up, cawing, swirling up like rags tossed into the air. Hands dropping to his sides, Sam folds onto his knees and stays there, quite still. Quiet, while the birds lift and turn into the sky.

Dean bites his lower lip, winces. Licks at the warmth of blood. He aches everywhere: wrists, shoulders, face, and ass. He shivers as a flashback rips like a vision into his head: the cops laying into Sam. The image shifts, bright and 3-D, full-on with Sensurround, and he shakes it away, really not wanting to hurl again. Certainly not wanting to remember. Any of it. But, shit, Sam’s all about the knowing. The picking to tiny pieces and _analyzing_. Even if he is sitting in the middle of a field, his mind’s probably running in a hamster wheel.

Dean sighs, and tramps across the ground, his boots scuffing up dust from the dry earth.

Standing just behind Sam, he looks down. His brother just stares at the horizon. “Would it help if I just said, sure, they raped me?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Dean kicks aimlessly at a large pebble. “Why not?”

“Because you don’t believe it.”

Oh. Right. “Sam, why does it matter?”

Sam turns then, twists so he’s kneeling and looks up, his hands resting in fists on his grubby jeans. “Because one day you’ll just let someone fuck you, hit you, shoot you, and you’ll save someone – but that someone won’t be you!”

“So, that’s my job. I look after you, Sammy.” Dean turns away, not quite able to look at the pain that suddenly rips across Sam’s face. “I don’t always succeed –”

The tackle takes him down, thudding into the dirt, Sam’s weight holding him flat on his back, gasping in surprise and pain as hands grip his shoulders and pin him into place. Sam stares down, and there’s nowhere to look but into the intensity of his eyes.

“Dean, if you die trying to save me from something, so help me, I’ll find you and haunt you until the world fuckin’ ends. Understand?”

“Sam.” Dean can hear how breathless he sounds. “I wouldn’t do it on purpose!”

“I know that, you idiot!” Sam’s shouting again, and over his shoulder Dean can just see another bird flap up into the sky, but the anger’s seeped away and Sam’s just lying on him, panting, his eyes wet with tears again, and Dean feels a jolt of guilt that he’s done this; made his brother angry/sad/unhappy.

He could never be good enough for his dad either.

“Dean, come back. What’re you thinking?”

His fingers are digging into young plants and earth, though Dean feels anything but grounded. He feels like he’s floating upwards, into the sky with the rooks and crows; black birds with wide wings and scavenging beaks. “That I’m sorry.”

“What! Man, you think you failed? Dean, Dean, oh shit… I’m the one who’s stupid. And sorry.” He rolls to one side, and Dean blinks as the world shivers brightly. “Come on, talk to me.”

Sam doesn’t go far, one thigh still slung across Dean’s legs, one arm propped under his own head, the other stroking Dean’s face. It feels so good. Dean moves into it, and finds himself wrapped in long arms, Sam’s face burrowing into his neck and he’s just held, and held, and he closes his eyes, letting himself be nothing but here, now, this moment.

His father never held him. Not like this. Not even after they’d fucked. Or someone else had fucked him, for whatever reason – money, goods, information, safety. Daddy Winchester was a man. Men don’t hug.

And Dean is so fucked. Because he doesn’t push Sam away. Instead, he holds him back, the ground cold underneath them and the sky bright and huge above, and there’s warmth running through his veins. Warmth, and something that he knows is real love.

“Sam, I’m sorry. I just couldn’t think of another way…”

“There wasn’t one, I know. I’m just… Shit, Dean, I’m sorry. This is all, well, pretty weird.”

Pretty weird. Yep, that summed it up. “Oh yeah.”

“Did I hurt you, knocking you over?”

“No. ‘m fine.”

“Liar.”

“Well, no worse.”

“That’s better.”

Dean stifles a small laugh. “You do realize we’re lying in the middle of a field?”

“And?”

“Nothin’.”

Sam shifts again, and this time he tucks his arm under Dean’s head, giving him a pillow as he pulls him close before lying back and staring up at the sky. After a moment he says, “There’re thunderheads over the hills.”

Dean snorts. “Is that one of them pretty metaphor things you college boys are so keen on?”

“No.” Slow, patient voice threaded with amusement. “Just sayin’ that there’s a storm coming.”

“Not for a while.”

Sam nods. He’s silent for what feels like a long time. Dean almost drifts into sleep, the edges of a dream teasing his consciousness. 

“Did dad fuck you?”

Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, or the headache that’s pounding at his skull, but somehow it’s way too easy to tell the truth. “Yeah.”

“Of course.”

“What?”

“I think I knew. Just couldn’t let myself believe it.”

“At least he didn’t try it with you.” Sam flinches and Dean feels it and curses his sloppy, tired brain. “Sam –”

“Shush. One day, I want you to tell me about it. But not right now. Because otherwise I’ll have to go and find the bastard and tell him what I think of him.”

“It was survival. Training…”

Sam’s eyes flicker. “Sure. Like I said, not now. Fuck, you know? I’m not much better than him, but at least you’re not a kid.” He shakes his head. “No wonder you weren’t shocked by the whole brother thing.”

Dean thinks back, remembers his own total lack of misgivings, just the sense of total _rightness_ when Sam touched him. He shrugs. “Guess that was part of it.”

“Maybe it runs in the family.”

Dean lifts his head from Sam’s shoulder, because Sam sounds so amused. “What?”

“ _Keeping_ it in the family.” He laughs softly. “Man, I watched you one night, jerking off. You must’ve been, oh, seventeen I guess. You were in the shower at one of those shitty motels dad used to leave us in, and the outer door was glass. I peered through it, I don’t know, maybe I was going to throw cold water on you, or play some stupid prank, but I caught sight of you standing there, wet and naked and hard. Man, I just _wanted_ you.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow.” Sam slides his hand under Dean’s shirt and touches skin. Both of them shiver. “And I didn’t do anything. Though I thought of you every time I jerked off for about two years. Not other men, just you.”

“Sam…”

“Yeah. I know.” His hand slowly traces down to Dean’s waistband, callused fingertips scratchy, comforting, arousing too. He reaches between their bodies and brushes against Dean’s thickening cock. His breath skips, which makes Dean shiver. “I’m your brother, ‘course I know.” He smiles. And Dean’s smiling back, shakily, even through the kiss that melts them into each other.

When he shifts back, Sam’s eyes are clouded, arousal and pain all mixed up. “I’m sorry I didn’t know – didn’t _see_ what was under my nose.”

“Why should you? Dad told me to keep it a secret, so I did.”

“So many secrets, Dean. One day…”

“Sammy, don’t…”

“I mean it. One day. Tell me the rest?”

“Sure.” It’s a lie, and they both know it, but Sam’s kind and doesn’t push him on it.

Instead he takes a deep breath. “Come on. I want a motel, a shower, food, some decent painkillers for you – don’t argue, I know, remember? – and then after all that? I want us. Slow and easy. I’ll drive…” He grins then, and eases away before sitting up, wincing as he does so. “You know what? Maybe I want some Tylenol too.”

Between them they get to their feet and, arms around each other, limp back to the Impala.


End file.
